


And Strengthen My Will

by bertie456 (bertee)



Series: Bones: You're Lovely to Me [27]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertie456





	And Strengthen My Will

Alan Morrison was not having a good week.

It all started the previous Thursday when he'd agreed to look after his sister's rabbit and guinea pig while she, her husband and their two precocious daughters went skiing in New Hampshire. With great reluctance, he had accommodated Flopsy the rabbit and Butch the guinea pig in their wooden hutch in his small garden, promising faithfully to do whatever necessary (aka the minimum possible) to keep the two large furry rodents alive until his sister returned. However, the family's plane had barely left the runway when, much to Alan's disbelief, Flopsy had decided that carrots just weren't enough for a growing rabbit and so had tried to chow down on Butch.

After a brief, botched attempt at constructing a Hannibal-Lecter-style mask for Flopsy out of chicken wire and sticky tape, he finally gave in and spent half the remainder of his month's paycheck on a separate Butch hutch, thus preventing the beloved family pets from becoming snacker and snackee, and simultaneously dooming himself to a week spent eating lentils until his next paycheck came through.

His week had not improved with a visit of his soon-to-be mother-in-law over the weekend, who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in taking him through each room of the house in turn and pointing out exactly what was wrong with the decoration, DIY jobs and furnishings. She also helpfully offered her opinion on his new car ("Did you actually choose that color or was it on a discount?"), his birthday present for his fiancee ("Sadie never used to like that type of art"), and even his haircut, ("Short hair really doesn't suit round faces, dear").

Her eventual cackling departure on Sunday was followed by an argument with his fiancee, during which he had unfortunately intimated that if he never saw the evil old witch again it would be too soon. This statement then resulted in him receiving silent treatment for the next two days. And finally, the Week from Hell was rounded off by his least favorite holiday of all: Halloween.

Not that he had anything against the holiday in principle. To him, any chance for children to opportunistically coerce candy from neighbors by means of colorful costumes was something to be celebrated. However, the fun of Halloween was diminished somewhat when his ever-malicious supervisor signed him up to work that evening in revenge for Alan inadvertently purloining the last of her fat-free yogurts from the communal refrigerator.

For police dispatchers like Alan, Halloween was one of the worst nights of the year. Not only were there far more calls than usual, but they were almost always relating to one of three stock scenarios.

Scenario one: A phone call from a little old lady/concerned neighbor/anxious person who was complaining about teenagers using the holiday to be noisy, threatening and generally disruptive. This scenario was easily solved by sending a patrol car to simply drive once through the affected area, and Alan often heard chuckling policemen report back to him that the troublemakers had taken off like horses in the Kentucky Derby.

Scenario two: A phone call from a high-pitched mother informing him that her child had been kidnapped from right under her nose as they were out trick-or-treating. These calls were typical followed by an excruciatingly long attempt to calm down the distressed parent, and ended when said parent stumbled upon little Jimmy tucked under a bush somewhere on his way to Sugar-High City.

Scenario three: An automatic alert from a store telling him that some genius robbers had clearly thought store alarms would be disabled in the spirit of Halloween and had therefore chosen this night to go steal things. This scenario generally played out like the most simple form of cops and robbers, with the cops showing up, catching the robbers in the act and bundling them off to jail before returning to the same street later that night when other stunningly originally thieves had the same idea.

So far, the messages he'd taken that evening had done nothing to improve his dislike of the the holiday or the misfortunes of his week in generally. Sliding his headphones off, he stood up from his computer, stretching tiredly after three hours spent staring at the familiar screen as he co-ordinated some of the various dispatches around the city. Deciding it was time for a break, he mimed drinking coffee to his supervisor before walking over to the coffee machine to join his friend Larry Mitchell, who looked just as nonplussed with the shift choice as Alan himself was.

Putting a paper cup under the spout, he pressed the requisite buttons as Larry asked tiredly, "You had anything interesting so far?"

Alan shook his head with a dejected shrug, "Nope. Best one I've had all evening is an old lady up in Georgetown who was convinced goblins had sprung out of the sewers."

His friend chuckled, sipping his coffee before contributing, "I had two cops radio in about suspected trouble at a Krispy Kreme store."

"And how is that interesting?" Alan asked morosely, running his hand through his short ginger hair.

"The same squad car then went to 'investigate' further disturbances at Dairy Queen, Dunkin' Donuts and Burger King," he replied with a grin. "Guess they were doing their own version of trick or treating."

Alan managed a half-hearted smile at the news, inquiring conversationally, "Which car?"

"24-8-0-2," Larry responded knowingly, and his friend nodded in amused recognition.

"The Cake-off team?"

"The one and only," the blond man responded with a grin. "Must be the only cops in DC to get involved in a standoff for the sake of pastries."

Smiling at the many frantic status updates that day, the highlights of which were 'We are now being pelted with croissants' and 'They're setting fire to the pastries! Dispatch, we're going in!', Alan picked up his coffee as he pondered, "You heard anything from the Hall of Fame tonight?"

Dejected, Larry shook his head, "Looks like all is quiet on the entertainment front tonight, my friend. None of them have radioed anything in yet."

Alan sighed, glancing up at the small community noticeboard behind them, affectionately known as the Hall of Fame. This venerable institution was a long-standing tradition among the dispatchers and they made sure to scribble accounts of their most amusing radio conversations on the board. Since the merger of the DCPD dispatch division with that of the FBI, they had introduced a hall of fame for the top five agents or cops who pretty much struck gold every time they picked up their radio. If one of the members of the ever-changing Hall of Fame were on duty, the dispatchers were pretty much guaranteed something amusing to listen to amid the dull routine of their jobs.

Scanning the board, he swallowed a mouthful of coffee before pointing to a photo and asking, "Isn't Officer Addams out tonight?"

"Nope," Larry answered simply. "He's out on a date with one of the morning-shift workers."

"Anna?"

"No, that's was last month," his friend informed him. "He just broke up with Rachel and he's out tonight with Charlotte."

"Charlotte?" he inquired, not remembering a colleague by that name.

"Yeah, you know Charlotte. Started two weeks ago, blonde, very petite." Recognition wasn't dawning and Larry tried again, "She slapped Roger for making 'sexual advances'?"

"Oh, that Charlotte," Alan said with a grin before another thought occurred, "Wait, she slaps Roger for saying 'hello' but then goes on a date with Dispatch-is-my-Dating-Hotline Addams?"

Swallowing another mouthful of coffee, the blond man said with a note of admiration, "He does have a very good radio voice."

Alan raised his eyebrows. "Something you want to tell me, Larry?"

Larry just glared at him. "Funny, Morrison. Very funny. Tell me, you drive any more rodents to cannibalism today?"

His friend just elbowed him firmly in the arm, drinking more coffee as he looked up at the newest member in the Hall of Fame with a frown, "Who's Wilson?"

A smug smile crossed Larry's face and he gave Alan his full attention, his tone one of superior knowledge, "Agent Wilson is a rookie at the Bureau who just got given his own company car this weekend."

"That's great, Larry, but why is he suddenly Number One on the board?"

"Because," he began with the air of an excited storyteller, "I got a broadcast through from him on Monday that he was going to apprehend a suspect on a possible murder charge." He grinned. "The next broadcast I got from his vehicle was a mentally unstable murder suspect boasting that he'd stolen an FBI Agent's car."

Alan couldn't stop the snort of amusement that escaped him. "Seriously?"

His colleague nodded proudly, "Yep. There is a twenty minute recording of a crazed murder suspect driving round DC, in the car of a Federal Agent, singing "Row-Row-Row Your Boat" while accompanied by the sirens of chasing cop cars." He sipped his coffee. "It's a thing of beauty. Part of me wants to make a montage and put it on YouTube."

The red-headed dispatcher laughed. "So Agent Wilson gets the top spot?"

"For now. Turns out the FBI took the vehicle away from him once the crazy guy was caught; Wilson'll be lucky if he gets a company tricycle before he's thirty." He looked back up at the board. "Nope, your guy should be back on top in no time. And speaking of time..." Larry glanced at the clock across the room. "We should really get back to work. See how many more kids mysteriously disappear and reappear during trick-or-treat."

With a resigned sigh, Alan poured the rest of his paintstripper-disguised-as-coffee down the sink before following his buddy back to their work stations, praying for some sort of excitement to enliven the otherwise monotonous shift ahead of him. Slumping back in his seat, he donned his headset before flicking on the call processing button so that he might get his very own food-oriented cops or robbery-in-progress alert.

"Dispatch, 22-7-0-5."

The tune of "It's a Wonderful World" suddenly began to waltz through his mind at the familiar code of the usual Number One on the Dispatchers' Hall of Fame. _I see trees of green, red roses too..._

"22-7-0-5, Dispatch," he replied out of habit. _I see them bloom, for me and you..._

"22-7-0-5 requests back-up and local units at Aloha Flowers between Friendship Heights and Bethesda."

 _And I think to myself..._

"Oh. Please be advised that agents are UC dressed as a squint... and Wonder Woman."

 _What a wonderful world..._

A broad smile spread across Alan Morrison's face as Special Agent Seeley Booth's admission filtered through his headphones, and he immediately made the mental note to move the agent back up to his rightful place at the top of the Hall of Fame for a truly stellar track record of Dispatch calls.

Booth had first made his way onto the board approximately two years earlier after a very sheepish call to inform Dispatch that not only was a murder suspect being carted away in a ambulance with a bullet in his leg, but that Booth himself was bringing in his own civilian partner on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Since then he'd been a regular fixture, with incidents ranging from offending the Tactical Ops Team by apparently doing clock impressions at them, to his cheerful partner commandeering his radio to inform them that she was taking Agent Booth to the hospital because he'd been "a little bit tortured".

Alan's personal favorite aural encounter with the agent had been six months earlier, when Booth's attempts to say that he was bringing a suspect, Max Keenan, into custody were interrupted by heckles from the old man in question, claiming that he had kicked the agent's ass in a fight he made sound like a WWF smackdown. However, the current costume revelation was now vying for top spot in the List of Agent Booth's Comedic Dispatch Messages, and Alan grabbed Larry's elbow as the other man moved to sit down, dragging him over to his work station while he spoke into the headphones, "Repeat, 22-7-0-5."

The two colleagues listened intently as Booth's voice came over the headphones, both of them trying to suppress outbursts of laughter, "Just picture a scientist, nerd, brainiac, dweeb, dork, whatever."

"And Wonder Woman," came another muffled but clearly insistent voice which reminded Alan of his nagging mother-in-law-to-be.

"And Wonder Woman," the agent repeated reluctantly, and Larry pulled away, breaking into fits of laughter as his colleague tried to keep a straight face.

"Acknowledge, 22-7-0-5," he finished, desperate to end the conversation before he laughed straight at him.

The crackle of the radio was replaced with silence, indicating the end of the conversation, and he finally let himself laugh out loud, swiftly dispatching two local police units to the requested location as he pictured with amusement the sight of Wonder Woman and a brainiac charging in to fight crime together.

When the actual public-safety part of his job had been accomplished, he pulled off the headset again, moving quickly back to the noticeboard with Larry as he asked smugly, "So, does Agent Booth get to reclaim the top spot now?"

His friend nodded, grinning, "You got no arguments from me. I don't even know why we bother with the competition anymore."

Still smiling himself, Alan reached up, tugging the two Post-It covered ID pictures off the wall and demoting Agent Wilson to second place as Booth regained the top spot. Chuckling to himself, he scribbled a quick account of their conversation on another Post-It note and stuck it on the wall, feeling incredibly grateful to Agent Booth and his seemingly ever-present partner for making both Halloween and his terrible week that little more bearable.

Turning to go back to his seat and resume his shift, he was stopped when his colleague blocked his way, lips pursed in contemplation as he asked, "He said that him and his scientist partner were dressed up as a scientist and Wonder Woman, right?"

"Yep, he said Wonder Woman and a squint," Alan confirmed, wondering what his point was.

A full-on grin broke out on Larry's face as he pondered, "I wonder which one was which."


End file.
